Environmental NGOs Invoke DQA
Three environmental watchdog organizations are invoking the Data Quality Act against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Cook Inletkeeper, The Alaska Center for the Environment, and the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, represented by their law firm Trustees for Alaska, are using the DQA because they claim that the "the Corps used bad information to reach its decision" in granting a permit to allow a substantial expansion of the Port of Anchorage. The NGOs’ Request for Correction (RFC) states that "Corps used faulty reasoning and inaccurate, unreliable or biased data when it issued the permit allowing a large stretch of Knik Arm to be filled in."
The RFC requests that: 1) certain information in the Corps’ Permit Evaluation and Decision Document be corrected; and 2) the permit based on the decision document be revoked.
The specific DQA violations charged by the NGOs include data pertaining to the Corps’ cost estimates. As the RFC explains, the "Alaska District’s presentation of the information concerning construction costs is, however, inaccurate, unclear, incomplete, and biased....in violation of the OMB Guidelines and DOD Guidance. As a matter of substance, the information also is inaccurate, unreliable...and otherwise fails to meet the best science standard of the OMB Guidelines and DOD Guidance."
The Army Corps of Engineers has the legal duty to thoroughly evaluate the NGOs’ RFC in strict adherence to the Data Quality standards, and time frames, set by OMB and DOD.
See DQA Request for Correction and Cover Letter
See Request for Correction w/ supporting documents
See Anchorage Daily News article
